State budget cuts could force "dramatic" changes for Kalamazoo Public Schools, officials warn

Gazette fileKalamazoo Public Schools Superintendent Michael Rice addresses sixth-grade students at Linden Grove Middle School last April. Rice said during a forum Tuesday that proposed state cuts to K-12 education could have a "dramatic" impact on the district.

KALAMAZOO — Kalamazoo Public Schools will have to cut compensation across the board as well as enact “dramatic” changes to staffing and programs if the Michigan Legislature approves the K-12 funding reductions proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder, KPS officials said Tuesday.

“Class size will rise at every level in the district,” and there likely will be cuts in transportation, the arts, athletics and Advanced Placement, Superintendent Michael Rice said at a forum attended by about 80 people at Loy Norrix High School.

KPS and other Michigan school districts are scrambling to develop budget plans in response to Snyder’s proposal, which cuts about $1 billion in K-12 funding. Schools also are facing a significant increase in the mandatory assessment they pay to the state’s school employee retirement fund. For KPS, the total impact is about $11.3 million of the district’s $130 million operating budget.

Snyder has said that “shared sacrifice” is needed to balance the state budget, and has suggested districts can absorb most of the cuts by making employees pay for 20 percent of insurance premiums and cutting noninstructional expenses by 10 percent.

“There is no question in my mind that districts across the state will cut compensation,” Rice said. But to suggest that will close the funding gap, he said, “is not vaguely close to the truth.”

In the case of his district, Rice previously has said there is little wiggle room for concessions. Teacher salaries in KPS already are below the national, state and county average and their insurance costs also are lower than average for area school districts. Moreover, KPS is losing more money than most districts because, in addition to the other cuts, it is losing more than $2 million in state funding to reduce class size in grades K-3 in high-poverty schools.

“It helps children who have had a miserable beginning, and gives them a fighting chance of catching up before they are at risk of dropping out,” Rice said about the small class-size grant. “An increase from 17 to 23 children in a high-poverty classroom, that is a profound cut. It’s not a big cut in the scope of the state budget, but it’s very big in its impact on us.”

Rice said that Snyder’s cuts are particularly objectionable because the K-12 funding cuts involve a “manufactured crisis.” Michigan pays for K-12 from the School Aid Fund, which is separate from the state’s General Fund and has a separate revenue. For the next three years, the School Aid Fund is projected to have a surplus, but Snyder is diverting some of the revenues to fund higher education.

KPS officials argue that breaks faith with the voters who approved the current school funding system in 1994. “I campaigned for Proposal A,” KPS Deputy Superintendent Gary Start said. “It feels like someone pulled a fast one on the state constitution.”

Rice suggested that the governor’s budget “is well outside of what most people think is right.” But, he added, it’s likely at least some elements of the budget plan will be adopted, and he urged people to connect their lawmakers to give them feedback on what they feel should be done.

Most people in the audience said they were upset about Snyder’s plan, and questioned how it would be good for Michigan and Michigan residents.

Cutting funding to K-12 education “is like setting up our children for failure,” one woman in the audience said.

Tina Tabulog, the PTO president at Kalamazoo’s Woodward Elementary School, accused Snyder of “doing good for the people he knows,” and forsaking Michigan’s children. “I’m sick that our kids’ future is going down the drain and we can’t give them a little bit of help,” she said.

But Chris McLeod, a KPS parent, said that Snyder’s cut “seem reasonable to me.”

McLeod said he comes from a family of educators, works as a coach and counselor for Lakeside Academy for troubled youths, and has three young children.

”I care as much as anybody in this room about children and education,” he said, but added that he feels K-12 needs to cut spending as a result of Michigan’s economic downturn. “We don’t have the resources and we have to rein in spending,” he said.

Rice acknowledged that Michigan’s K-12 districts need to look at their expenditures.

”Some suggest this is a particularly bad time and we all have to sacrifice and I agree with that,” he said. “There’s no question, for instance, that health insurance is an area that school districts need to work on.

”But this is a manufactured crisis. It is about choices and values,” Rice said. “It’s a choice, and we believe there are better choices.”

KPS is hosting a second public forum at 6:30 p.m. April 13 at Kalamazoo Central High School. Rice said he will invite local lawmakers to that event, an idea enthusiastically endorsed by Tuesday’s audience.